January 2007

January 30, 2007

Just a brief post. Anderson Cooper (CNN) did a segment today (transcript) on Sylvia Browne – examining the “successes” she claimed and finding them to be somewhat wanting. Cooper then hosted a he-said she-said segment with Randi opposite Linda Rossi, Sylvia’s business manager.

If you want the details, read the transcript, I’m not going to bother to break down Rossi‘s drivel line by line. Although one thing you probably won’t get from the transcript is how Rossi interrupted Randi numerous times and tried to talk over both him and Cooper. Randi behaved impeccably. And Cooper was pretty good, not letting Rossi get away with several attempted red herrings. But I thought it relevant to note that Rossi decided to allot most of her speaking time to complaining about Randi being an atheist, rather than explaining why we should believe that Sylvia is a psychic. She was trying to make it all about Randi – how he was an “atheist” and a “magician” – rather than providing evidence that Sylvia is not a fraud. Regular readers will know that attacking the person this way, rather than their arguments, is a logical fallacy known as ad hominem. It’s the refuge of someone who hasn’t any real arguments to present. Or as Cooper put it (if you could hear him over Rossi interrupting):

That's like a high school debating tactic, to attack the guy who's asking the question, as opposed to answering the actual question.

Very well put!

Of course, you know that Rossi said Sylvia wouldn’t take Randi’s challenge because “[Browne] has nothing to prove to Randi”. Of course, the real reason she won’t take it is because she knows she would fail. And following this lame performance from Sylvia’s representative, of this there can really be no doubt.

Tonight, Randi will be on Anderson Cooper Live. The show starts at 10:00 PM EST. A missing person's case and missing identity. "360°" takes you inside the mind of a con woman. What makes her tick? Watch tonight 10 ET.

January 28, 2007

James Randi was on Larry King Friday, sparring with “international spiritual medium” Rosemary Altea (transcript). Among other things, Randi asked Altea if she would take his One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, prompting Altea to regurgitate the usual lame justifications for not taking it. I am reminded of this list of bogus reasons pretend-psychics have for not taking the challenge. Although I’m not going to repeat that whole list, I thought it would be worthwhile to address some of the more common reasons given for not taking the challenge. These are the ones I hear the most:

Claim: I don’t need a million dollars and/or it doesn’t matter to me what Randi believes (Altea used this one too).

Reality: Don’t tell me you wouldn’t love to win just to rub Randi’s nose in it. If any one of these big name psychics really could do what they claim they can, they’d take it in an instant, and would revel in the publicity and in Randi’s humiliation. And they could give the million to charity if they don’t need it.

No – if you had the powers you claim, you’d take the test.

Claim: Randi can’t say before I apply, what the test will be (Altea implied this as well).

Reality: Each test has to be designed individually – a test for a dowser is different from a test for a psychic, which is different from a test for homeopathy. If there was only one standard test for all applicants, you’d soon complain that the challenge didn’t fit what you can do.

Claim: Randi rigs the test.

Reality: The test is designed so that the applicant is happy with it, and Randi is not involved in running the test. In addition there is no “judging” that would allow Randi (or the applicant) any wiggle room. The result will be clear – it’ll be either a pass or a fail based on the strict criteria agreed in advance.

The truth is that the test is designed to prevent cheating and to eliminate results due simply to chance – and that is the real reason frauds won’t take it.

Let’s be clear here – if anyone actually had real psychic powers, they would be able to ace the challenge. The fact that no one has won it, and that the big names are frightened to take it, is not proof that psychic powers don’t exist, but it is starting to be pretty good evidence that they probably don’t.

Changes to the challenge

Randi recently announced some changes to the Challenge, effective April 1, 2007. (There is no doubt some intentional irony in changes to a test of psychics taking place on April Fool’s day.) There are a couple of changes, namely:

First, any applicant will be required to have a media profile. By that, we mean that there must be some media recognition – a television interview, a newspaper account, some press writeup, or a reference in a book, that provides details of the claimed abilities of the applicant. […] The second requirement will be that the applicant must provide an endorsement of an academic nature. That means some sort of validation from an appropriately-qualified academic.

The reason for this change is to cut down on the time taken by Randi’s staff devising tests of little value. For example, Randi says that 80% of applicants are dowsers – and dowsing has been tested and has failed so often now it’s really about time we moved on to something new. In addition, some applications are clearly from people who are deranged or even mentally ill, and there seems little real point in proceeding with people like that. This new rule is designed to focus JREF staff time more productively.

Unfortunately, this new requirement will allow the frauds another excuse not to take the test. But the reality is this is not a valid excuse. Randi has said that a successful test by a local skeptics’ group would qualify – so get a local skeptics’ group to test you first. (Not really difficult – there are many groups who would love to do this.)

Of course, the big names like Sylvia Browne, John Edward and the like would already qualify, so this lame excuse wouldn’t apply to them anyway. (Incidentally, John Edward refused the test on the grounds that he won’t allow himself “to be tested by somebody who’s got an adjective as a first name”. Apart from the fact that this is a really lame excuse, I’m pretty sure that “The Amazing Randi”’s first name is a definite article, not an adjective.)

The other change to the challenge is a little more interesting:

Rather than merely waiting for applicants to present themselves, we will regularly and officially highlight well-known persons in the field and challenge them directly by name. Those challenged will then have a six-month period during which they may respond; during that period the JREF will heavily publicize the fact that such a challenge has been issued, we will issue press releases on the matter, and we will be frequently asking that those challenged make a response. Tentatively, we will begin by formally challenging Uri Geller, James Van Praagh, Sylvia Browne, and John Edward, on April 1st.

Randi goes on to say that the JREF will begin actively pursuing the possibility of legal actions being brought against prominent figures, to investigate whether or not any laws are being broken by false promises and the like. Direct challenges to named individuals, plus legal actions against possible frauds – this is going to be interesting.

Of course, we know the big names who knowingly use trickery, will still avoid the challenge. Just look at Sylvia Browne’s tactics to dodge the challenge, after she had agreed on Larry King over five years ago, that she would take it. But perhaps her continued refusal will start to get more publicity now that the mainstream news media is beginning to catch on.

One final point – there is now an online petition to get Sylvia to take Randi’s challenge. I don’t normally promote online petitions, since they’re generally of little use. Still, I’ll make an exception in this one case, since I think it would be fun to have an additional stick to beat Sylvia and Montel. However, using my own awesome psychic powers, and after consulting my personal spirit guide, I predict Sylvia still won’t take the challenge.

Randi, in today’s SWIFT, replied line by line to Sylvia Browne’s lame attack on him following her recent blunders about Shawn Hornbeck. Most of Randi’s replies were pretty good (as you’d expect), but I think he missed a trick in this exchange:

Sylvia Browne: If the brilliant scientists throughout history had a James Randi negating every aspect of their work, I doubt we would have progressed very far in medicine or in any technology.

Randi: Very true. But any truly scientific work would be totally immune to reversal or negation, by definition. This appears to be an effort by Sylvia to take a seat beside "brilliant scientists" – and I suggest that she – or they – move to another table. You, Sylvia, have done absolutely zero to move ahead any knowledge of the real world; you have tried to keep the public back in the Middle Ages.

“Very true”? No, not true at all. In fact, Randi’s approach of demanding evidence for extraordinary claims, is the cornerstone of science. As I wrote in the appeal to be open-minded:

Bad ideas should be discarded - by weeding out bad ideas the good can flourish. An earlier version of this argument would have gone, “You’re closed-minded in saying that humors don’t exist” to justify bloodletting. But by focusing uncritically on bloodletting, germ theory would never have been discovered. Germ theory was discovered by skeptical scientists who insisted on evidence, not by new-agers with open minds.

It is because of skeptical scientists, using Randi-like skeptical thinking, that false ideas have been rejected in favor of true ones. Without the rejection of false ideas, how would we know which ones were true? It’s only by trying hard to disprove tentative theories, and discarding those disproven, that we can be reasonably confident that what is left standing is true. Of course, “the brilliant scientists throughout history” would have known this. The dreary pretend-psychics throughout history have added nothing to medicine or technology, nor have provided anything of any use whatsoever. For evidence of this see Sylvia Browne’s 2006 predictions compared with what actually happened.

Some drivel today from theologian Alister McGrath about Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. It’s the same old vapid nonsense, refuted numerous times in the reality-based blogs such as Pharyngula, so I’m not going to bother to deconstruct the silly arguments again. (And you’ll see numerous people in the comments to the post, making the points anyway.) But one sentence stood out, which is saying something considering the dopey arguments presented throughout the article. It was this piece in the final paragraph, where he criticized Dawkins for “saying something more loudly and confidently, while ignoring or trivializing counter-evidence”. He followed that with:

For the gullible and credulous, it is the confidence with which something is said that persuades, rather than the evidence offered in its support.

Well yeah! But that describes exactly how religious fairy tales have been presented throughout the ages, and the sheep who believe them without a shred of evidence.

January 22, 2007

Via my Google alerts for Adam the DreamHealer, I found this post on the HealthWatcher blog, entitled “Response to Skeptics”. It is supposed to be a response to skeptics (like me) who doubt Adam’s healing claims, and point out the fallacies employed by proponents of this kind of (so-called) healing. I jumped on it in interest, wondering what he would have to say – what his “response” to us skeptics would be.

Unfortunately, it was no response at all. Get this:

Over the last 4 years Adam has shared his experiences and abilities with thousands of people. He has spent many dedicated hours talking to each individual at the workshops. His teachings of healing techniques have helped many around the world as is evidenced by the hundreds of testimonials posted on his website and the overwhelming positive response at his workshops.

This is a standard, lame appeal to popularity – but nothing to counter anything skeptics would have written. He continues:

… as Adam’s popularity continues to increase, so will [skeptics’] uninformed voices.

Fighting talk. Except the writer doesn’t give one example of where skeptics are uninformed. The whole post is just one long whine about how the mean skeptics oppose Adam – but not one reason why we shouldn’t.

I’d leave a comment on his blog except you have to register and log in before you can comment. Still, read the post and consider this is the best “response” to skeptics that Adam’s fans can come up with.

"I'm terribly sorry that this happened," she told the Daily News. "But I think my body of work stands by itself. I've broken case after case."

"I think it's just cruel to jump on this one case in which I was wrong," she added defensively. "I've said thousands of times I'm not God."

I don’t think anyone expects her to be God. I would, however, expect her to be able to tell the difference between dead and alive. Seriously – isn’t that just about the most important distinction you can make? (What would you think of a doctor who couldn’t tell if someone was dead or alive?) Really, what is the point of asking a psychic if she can’t even get that right? And what did she give us – the body would be found “in a wooded area” – that’s about as generic as it gets. All that was missing was “near water” – another old standby of the pretend-psychic. And don’t forget all the wrong guesses about the abductor – the Hispanic with dreadlocks, driving an old car with fins. A lot of use that was.

And her claim of having broken numerous cases is not substantiated by the facts. Of course, it’s easy to claim you’ve broken cases – not so easy to back up such a claim. The truth is, Sylvia’s history is one of blunders totally consistent with a cold reader making guesses and playing the odds. For example the Sago miners are alive. Or your mother is dead. Or, your boyfriend died “ in water”. It’s notable that Sylvia doesn’t list her actual supposed “successes”. So with this list of proven failures, why should we believe her?

Nobody is suggesting Sylvia has to be right every time, just that she should be right significantly more than chance. Of course, if she really was psychic, she could demonstrate that by honoring her agreement to be tested for Randi’s million dollars – something she has avoided for over five years now. It’s really no surprise she continues to avoid this one clear opportunity to have her psychic abilities tested in a way that controls for cold reading and guesswork. Meanwhile, Montel continues to tape shows with the old fraud. Shame on you.

January 17, 2007

I wanted to follow up Monday’s post about how Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh were totally wrong about Shawn Hornbeck. It’s obvious that those two jokers have no psychic powers, and are just playing the odds, but it is notable that no other “psychic”, as far as I am aware, was correct either. And it appears that Shawn’s parents did consult several. So I got to thinking what it would be like if there was even ONE real psychic in the world looking into this case. After all, anyone can be right most of the time by guessing the missing child is dead. What would be really spiffy and useful, if there was a real psychic, would be if they could zero in on the rare cases where the child is still alive after all this time. And if they could help find him or her.

For example, they could come up with something like:

I sense that Shawn is alive. He is being held in an apartment nearby, by a man who drives an old white Nissan pickup truck. He is a middle-aged white man with a beard. I sense that he works as a manager of a restaurant – possibly a pizza restaurant.

The psychic might even know something else, such as:

Shawn’s abductor has been in trouble with the police, and has been arrested for a traffic violation.

Don’t you think that would have been a real help?

Of course, additional details such as his name and address would be pretty useful too. Think that’s too hard? Well, if you watch TV’s “Medium” (featuring “Allison Dubois”) or “Ghost Whisperer” (“based on the work of James Van Praagh”, who is the show’s Co-Executive Producer), you would see crimes being solved with this degree of precise psychically derived information, every week. Surely in the real world it should happen at least occasionally?

It seems to me that if psychics were real, they would find some missing children in this way, on some sort of regular basis. And with the easy ability to check that these predictions were actually made in advance, wouldn’t these correct predictions be publicized widely? Wouldn’t we all know that such-and-such a child had been safely recovered due to the diligent predictions of a particular named psychic? I would have thought so. So why don’t we hear of this? Why don’t psychics tell us where all these missing children are? Could it be that they just don’t care? They know where the kidnapped children are but just couldn’t be bothered to let anyone know? Pretty mean of them.

Or alternatively, perhaps psychics and psychic powers just don’t exist. Isn’t that really the simplest and most likely answer?

January 15, 2007

From Stop Sylvia Browne we learn of yet another of Sylvia’s blunders. On October 6, 2002, eleven year old Shawn Hornbeck disappeared while riding his bike to a friend's house in Richwood, Missouri. His anguished parents went on Montel’s TV show on February 24, 2003, to try to learn from “psychic” Sylvia Browne what might have happened to their son. Playing the odds as usual, she told them Shawn was dead ("is no longer with us"), and followed this with several guesses about where his body would be found (in a “wooded area”).

Fortunately, as you may have heard on the news this weekend, Shawn and another boy who went missing just last week, were just found alive in an apartment in Kirkwood, Missouri. Shawn’s father is quoted as saying, after Browne’s reading in 2003:

I don't know what to think any more. The information from different psychics doesn't match up.

…a dark-skinned man, he wasn't black -- more like hispanic [with] long, black hair that he wore in dreadlocks and was really tall.

Somehow, I don’t think that description would have been much help in capturing the man shown on the right – Shawn’s actual abductor. Nor would Browne’s description of the abductor’s car:

an older model blue sedan, a car with fins like in the late 1950's and early 1960's Chevrolets

… have been much help in capturing this driver of “a rusty Nissan pickup truck”.

And while we’re on the subject, James Van Praagh’s description of:

a person who worked in a railroad car plant was involved and the body might be concealed in a railway car

… wouldn’t have been much use either in catching this pizza parlor manager. Van Praagh is the moron who bleated on Larry King last January that “the emphasis should be on [skeptics] to prove it to us this is not real …”, and “Prove that we're wrong though. Prove that we are wrong”. OK, done and dusted – you’re proven wrong you scumbag.

Psychics were of no use at all. I am reminded of how PsiTech played the odds the same way and guessed that Elizabeth Smart was dead while all the time she was alive. A lot of police time and resources were wasted that time searching the locations where her dead body was supposed to be buried. I am also reminded of the time Browne pontificated on how the miners are alive based upon early (false) news reports that they were alive. And yet you know she will be on Montel again this week, dishing out her wisdom to the credulous. Montel should be ashamed.

Who knows how much police time was wasted following up the lame guesses of these millionaire pretend-psychics? Certainly the family of this missing boy were treated cruelly and cynically by these vermin. The comments below are open for the apologists for these liars to post their lame justifications for their heroes’ continued failures to be of any use to anyone in any way. Don’t disappoint.

January 05, 2007

Via Orac I learn of David Kirby’s strange but boldly deceptive piece in the Huff Post Tuesday.

You see, Kirby has a problem. He has to explain why the current autism figures haven’t “declined by 2007” as he claimed they would due to removal of thimerosal from vaccines, but he can’t admit it’s because thimerosal doesn’t cause autism. So how does he get out of this mess of his own making? Tricky one. Well, his response is quite brilliant in its imagination. Get this - he redefines what autism is. Yes, according to Kirby, all the “higher functioning” autistics (ie the ones that are not declining in number), are not really autistic. This increasing number has to be taken out of the total, so that the total isn’t increasing any more. This leaves just the real autistics (ie the ones poisoned by vaccines):

I'm talking about kids who spin like fireworks until they fall and crack their heads, kids who will play with a pencil but not with their sister, kids who stare at nothing and scream at everything and don't even realize it when their dad comes home from work.

Get it? These are the ones poisoned by thimerosal, not the increased numbers with Asperger's, etc. Wow! Probably the most blatant case of moving the goalposts I’ve ever seen. But you really have to give him some credit for thinking out the box. Quite inspired.

Kirby even has a new name for his newly defined not-autism- if-it-hasn’t-declined syndrome:

Maybe what these kids have is not autism, but something like, say, "Environmentally-acquired Neuroimmune Disorder," which we could call E.N.D. (Great slogan: "Let's End E.N.D.).

Yeah, good one Dave. I’ve got one to describe what you seem to be suffering from: "Disorder Enabling Nonsensical Interpretations And Lies", which we could call D.E.N.I.A.L. And I've got a great slogan too: "It’s not just a river in Egypt".

The year, of course, is the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun, right? Well, not exactly. It depends on what you mean by "year", and how you measure it. This takes a wee bit of explaining, so put down the champagne, take the lampshade off your head, and hang on.

Phil gives a really good explanation of the astronomical factors at play – and it’s not as simple as most people think. Of course, the Earth’s “wobble”, and the resulting difference between the sidereal and the tropical year is the reason that most astrological charts, and therefore your sun sign used by most astrologers, is wrong. Not that it would make any difference if astrologers used the sidereal instead of the tropical zodiac – astrology is crap either way.

ANDREW WAKEFIELD, the former surgeon whose campaign linking the MMR vaccine with autism caused a collapse in immunisation rates, was paid more than £400,000 [$780,000] by lawyers trying to prove that the vaccine was unsafe.

Of course, the fact that he was paid does not in and of itself prove Wakefield was wrong, although the conflict of interest clearly means we should examine his data more skeptically. However, the anti-vax crowd routinely use this kind of conflict of interest to smear anyone who disagrees with their position. It will be instructive to see how they handle this piece of news.

Next, John Lynch of Give Seed, Get Seed Stranger Fruit gives us ID in 2007 - from the horses mouth – a list of developments in ID that we almost certainly won’t be seeing. My favorite:

A theory of how the Designer-Who-Shall-Not-Be- Named did the designing.

And what a great year for scares. The Times reported on its front page that cocaine use among schoolchildren had doubled when it had done nothing of the sort (they simply misinterpreted the report). The media’s anti-MMR campaign continued unabated as the Telegraph, Mail and Times all reported on unpublished research claiming to show a link between the vaccine and autism, even though the research was from a man with a history of making such claims as far back as 2002, which he still hasn’t published. Over the year, at least two fully published studies showing a negative result for almost the exact same experiment were inexplicably ignored by all newspapers.

January 01, 2007

I was looking over Mondo Skepto’s list of Sylvia Browne’s predictions for 2007 and considering how so called “psychics” play these guessing games for the credulous. They sometimes play the odds and sometimes just make vague predictions that they will probably be able to claim as a hit no matter what. They also make a few outlandish claims that, if correct, will make them look really good. Then at the end of the year they make a big fuss of the few things they get right, knowing that confirmation bias means their fans will forget the greater number of wrong predictions. Anyway, I thought I should have a go, if only to see if I can do better than Sylvia. So, for your New Year’s Day amusement I present Skeptico’s psychic predictions for 2007. As with the professional “psychics”, I have included some obvious predictions, some vague, and a few off the wall ones (if one comes true I can claim a big hit). At the end of the year we will be able to see how many accurate predictions I can claim while ignoring the ones I got wrong. Bet you can’t wait. Here goes.

Politics

President Bush will announce more troops to be sent to Iraq to control the insurgency, but it will not work. There will continue to be calls to bring the troops home but Bush will not heed them.

President Bush will not be impeached.

John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama will announce their candidacies for President. Rudy Giuliani will announce he is not running.

Donald Rumsfeld will publish his memoirs.

Condoleezza Rice will be hospitalized for a serious illness, but will make a full recovery.

Dick Cheney will be hospitalized with heart problems.

Pakistan – there will be an assassination attempt on President Perez Musharraf that will leave him injured.

Cuba – Castro will remain alive and in power but his public appearances will be rare.

England – Tony Blair will step down as Prime Minister. There will be a contest for the leadership that will eventually be won by Gordon Brown, who will be the new Prime Minister. Browne will lead his Labour party in the general election in 2008 but will lose.

Palestine – President Mahmoud Abbas will step down due to ill health.

Disasters

There will be a major typhoon causing much damage and loss of life in SE Asia.

There will be a higher than normal number of strong hurricanes in the Atlantic. The mainland of the US will escape the worst of these storms but there will be serious damage and loss of life elsewhere.

There will be a significant earthquake Northern California, but no lives will be lost. There will be a major earthquake in China that will result in loss of lives.

There will be no Bird Flu pandemic in 2007, although some limited human cases will be reported.

There will be terrorist attacks against US interests in Africa and Asia. Australia should expect a terrorist attack from Islamic extremists.

US residents should avoid terrorist acts during the month of May.

Celebrities etc

Snoop Dogg will be acquitted of charges for drug and gun possession on a technicality, but he will be found guilty and will get probation for possession of a night stick.

Paris Hilton will get engaged again but will not go through with the marriage.

Britney Spears’ new album will have disappointing sales.

“Bobby” will win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Tiger Woods and his wife will announce they are expecting a baby (note – I wrote this several days ago – it was announced as true 12/30/06), and it will be a girl. Christina Aguilera will also announce she is expecting a child.

Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz will announce their engagement, although it won’t last.

“Brangelina” will stay together and will adopt another child, but they will not get married.

Sylvia Browne, John Edward and others will continue to appear on shows such as Montel and Larry King Live, pretending to talk to dead people. Sylvia will still not make good on her promise to try for Randi’s million.

Allison Dubois will still not solve any of her backlog of 200 murder cases she claims to be helping the police with.

Autism rates will not fall in 2007, despite the lack of thimerosal in childhood vaccines. However, this will not prevent the anti-vaccination groups from continuing to claim that vaccines are a cause of autism.